Talk:Turkish War of Independence

Expelled populations

There are many references to 1M expelled Greeks here and other places. I wonder how did anyone reach to these figures. Is there a reliable source of population counts in May 1919 in what is now Turkiye? How did they get expelled specifically, dates, places and numbers for example. It is also known that many minorities have been leaving, and more escaping the war torn country for better prospects in the West. In fact, such migrations were taking place continuously since 1900 or so. It seems all this population movement is lumped under "expelled" category. Which seems misleading.

Highly biased article controlled by anti-Turkish editors

This article, which is supposed to be an article about the independence struggle of the Turkish people and the founding of their own country from the partition by foreign imperialist forces, is full of biased and anti-Turkish sources about how the independence war was wrong and shouldn’t have happened. Not only that, but the frequent use of “genocides” to describe the events that happened during the War of Independence is also highly opinionated and biased.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong about describing the war crimes committed by the Turkish forces, but the fact that this article lacks even a single positive source about Turkish independence already showed the opinions of the biased editors about Turkey; the same for criticizing those historians who are sympathetic to the official Turkish opinion of the war like McCarthy and forbids them to have any input in the article, but allowing the source of a biased neoconservative historian Rummel, who has often been criticized for his gross exaggeration of numbers of excess deaths under anti-western regimes to be considered valid.

If anything, the whole article needs to be completely rewritten to include the sources from historians who have perspectives from both sides of the war. LeonChrisfield (talk) 10:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

That's why there is a "neutrality is disputed" temp for now. ภץאคгöร 15:04, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments; we can do little about a general grievance. If there are specific passages that you find problematic, or the sources offered are not being accurately summarized, please detail the issues on this page.

"Controlled by anti-Turkish editors" is a serious accusation requiring serious evidence.

The general academic and scholarly consensus(and increasingly governments) is that the term "genocide" is appropriate for the Armenian genocide. Opposition to this term(including by the Turkish government who expends significant effort to promote their view internationally, teach it to their citizens, and criminalizes it because it is integral to the founding of the modern Turkish state) is discussed at Armenian genocide denial. 331dot (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I am not an Armenian/Greek genocide denialist. I just believe this page should be more balanced with sources reflecting Turkish perspectives on the history. As for the claim of the page being controlled by anti-Turkish editors, I meant I believe the editors who primarily writes the page only selects sources from historians who have a grievance against Turkey, instead of trying to be objective. LeonChrisfield (talk) 18:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

If there are indeed anti-Turkish passages in the article please point them out in the discussion section so we can have an article agreeable to all contributors. This article is intended to tell the Turkish perspective of the war, while the Greco-Turkish War intended to tell the Greek side. I have reservations with this status quo, Wikipedia articles must strive to concisely tell the story of the conflict from every belligerents' perspective. In a conflict as large and complex as the Turkish War of Independence, this is a difficult challenge. That said, I put effort to tell the Turkish perspective by incorporating information from sources like Ryan Gingeras' The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire and Andrew Mango's biography of Atatürk.

If some facts or key pieces of information about the conflict with respect to the Turks is missing, extended confirmed contributors are more than welcome to incorporate information. I personally would welcome any DM for sources on this topic, and we can work out ways to incorporate them in this article (Turkish or English works with me). Benlittlewiki (talk) 22:37, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I see that you are a Turkish person. I am sure you are more familiar with the Turkish history than me, and so probably have access to relevant sources to counter the excessively biased parts of the article. I found this sentence quite misleading and dubious: "The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%." There was a mutually agreed population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which 1.6 million Greeks left Turkey for Greece. The population exchange contributed to a significant decline of the Christian population. But the sentence is twisted into making people believe that the TNM (The Turkish Nationalist Movement) genocided them. LeonChrisfield (talk) 12:13, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Even if we take the stats by Rummel, which are highly questionable due to his neoconservative biases and having a history of overestimating the deaths caused by anti-western regimes, 260k Greek civilians were murdered by Turkish army in the war. Therefore, most Greeks left Turkey as part of the population exchange, not genocided by the TNM. LeonChrisfield (talk) 12:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend creating a new discussion topic over whether to add a note to that number in the infobox indicating that the source is controversial or not good enough. Consensus would have to be established for this in the thread. You can help your case by finding another calculation who's source has better methodology. Benlittlewiki (talk) 02:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, some actors of the Turkish national movement engaged well documented acts of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide in the war before the population exchange, this is talked about in the article, though it could be expanded upon, especially Topal Osman's operations in the Pontus region. Benlittlewiki (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Where is your proof? There was a war goinf so peoplw from borh side died. Article is very biased and one-sided. 95.5.100.197 (talk) 03:55, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

As I stated above, it is difficult to respond to a general grievance. Please detail the specific passages that are problematic. The general academic and scholarly consensus(and increasingly governments) is that the term "genocide" is appropriate for the Armenian genocide. Opposition to this term(including by the Turkish government who expends significant effort to promote their view internationally, teach it to their citizens, and criminalizes it because it is integral to the founding of the modern Turkish state) is discussed at Armenian genocide denial. That includes the belief of some that it was actually the Armenians trying to commit genocide against the Turks. 331dot (talk) 06:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Instead of referring to the works of world-famous academicians who point to some 640000 Turkish civilian losses by the Greek army in the western front and 360000 in the eastern front by Armenians, using the webpage of unknown person from the Hawaii University, who himself does not show any sources for his claims cannot be considered neutrality.

Also what you call the Armenian Genocide refers to the incidents in 1915 committed by Ottoman Government. War of Independence is few years later and has nothing to do with the former. Speaking of genocide, it is ironic that Drastamat Kanayan, the commander of Armenian forces later fought in the WW2 on the side of Nazi Germany. 146.60.125.198 (talk) 08:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Pontic Greek genocide

Check out the Second Phase and the views of historians on it.Theofunny (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

On General Dro, Wikipedia says

During World War II, he led the Armenian Legion, which consisted of Armenian POWs who opted to fight for Nazi Germany rather than face the brutal conditions of the Nazis' camps. Theofunny (talk) 16:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Check out the Second Phase and the view of historians on it.

Pontic Greek genocide Theofunny (talk) 16:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

The propaganda machine is well maintained, no use fighting it. In an article that is supposed to be about Turkey’s fight for independence, the first sentence after the introduction puts the focus on a so-called genocide retrospectively manufactured for political interests. Wikipedia is a complete joke. 71.247.20.96 (talk) 18:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

If you disagree with what independent reliable sources say, you'll need to take that up with the sources. Once you convince them to change the general academic and scholarly consensus(not "propaganda" which is actually what the Turkish government does), let us know. 331dot (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

30.000 buildings + 250 villages burnt to ground by Greeks but only 15.000 Turk civilians killed?

Yeah, that really makes sense... Crxyzen (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, and they use Erwin Rummel's "work" as a source. BaharatlıCheetos2.0'ın devamı (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Capitalise "unionist"

Benlittlewiki, unionist is a descriptive noun for a class of people that belong to or are active in a union movement. As such, it is not a proper noun and should not be capitalised. Arguing to capitalise because is refers to such people from a particular movement falls to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

In this context, Unionist is not a descriptive noun, it is a proper noun; it specifically describes someone affiliated with the Committee of Union and Progress. It is similar to capitalizing "Republican: when talking about members of the Republican Party in the United States instead of lowercase republicans which refers to a general political movement for a republican form of government. Therefore, it must be capitalized. Benlittlewiki (talk) 00:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Are we sure?

Are we literally sure that SRAF (Southern Russia) supported Entente? @Benlittlewiki BaharatlıCheetos2.0'ın devamı (talk) 10:21, 13 July 2024 (UTC)